iheartscotch:I've always wondered why we don't have price controls on oil and gas. We are, more or less, a captive market.

Because the best long-interest is to control them by making them high, driving innovation. Making gasoline $8/gallon by imposing a huge tax and using the tax to invest in infrastructure would be a huge boon to society -- AFTER about a decade of serious pain, so no politician could even jokingly suggest it without being blacklisted from office. People suggest controls to make energy artificially cheap, but that only encourages waste.

And hell if we're a captive market. The people complaining the loudest about fuel prices use way more than they need and scoff at any attempts to reduce consumption as part of the liberal "let's all move back into caves" agenda. Hell, I live in an uber-liberal state that uses a lot of heating oil, which impacts gasoline prices. The same people biatching about how oil prices are killing them think turning the thermostat below 70F is prison camp treatment, and half the vehicles on the road are full-size SUVs.

Having worked for 2 of those 3 oil companies... I can say, they should be able to find plenty of proof... Considering they found it before, fined them a small amount, and the company promised to clean up its act.

the "thing" is the major news outlets are all owned by Wall st and Big Business. they don't bother investigating or reporting on such things until they're full blown public spectacle and then they get a small blurb while we move on to what Honey Boo Boo's mom is wearing at her wedding.

But remember, these are job creators here in the United States, who need tax cuts to somehow keep their prices down. There's no way this rent-seeking behavior could have catastrophic net-costs to an energy dependent economy, right? It's not like oil price is a fundamental component of inflation in this country. At all.

meanyogurt:It's almost as if there was a large populous country with a growing demand for the stuff...http://au.businessinsider.com/no-chinese-hard-landing-2013-5

As taken from your link - people should be very, very concerned with this growth. Unless you're investing in oil futures/oil companies, this is going to really negatively impact US transportation fuel prices in the coming years.Affordable, off-the-shelf solutions to avoid this are available in showrooms and stores today.